New Year
by BlackBear53
Summary: 1875 - 1876 New Years Eve and aftermath for Molly Reynolds and G Callen Written for a prompt by Melanie Campbell, yet again.


New Years

I'd just finished my dinner, washed the dishes and gone out to the barn to water and feed my cows, Patsy my draw horse and the chickens. They would get me through the winter as well as the root vegetable and the venison that Grey Wing's husband had brought up to me. He took care of me ever since Sam and I had sent her home from the kidnappers. I guess that I wasn't too bad of a white woman. I chuckle as I think that. A year ago he didn't want his wife anywhere near me. I could understand that. The white man didn't have a great track record here in the New Mexico Territory. But I'd proven myself to him and he respected that.

The year would change tonight from 1875 to 1876 and while things weren't great for me, they could've been a whole lot worse. My name is Molly Reynolds and I've lived on the side of the mountain above God's Fire for the last three years. I moved here as a newlywed and within a year and a half I buried a husband and a child. Four months back a man rode into the meadow above my cabin almost beaten to death and now it feels like he rode into my heart and back out again. I have no idea if he's still alive or dead. He'd gotten back on his horse Devil and gone back into Santa Fe to arrest the man who'd had him beaten. He'd been shot and almost died and while I've been told he hung on to life but that was almost a month ago. Not one word of his health has come to me from his partner, his mother or any other source.

I'm sitting on my front porch bundled up waiting. What I'm waiting for is a big unknown. I'd love to look up and see Grisha riding up the trail to the cabin but that hasn't happened yet and it is doubtful that it will.

It is a clear night and every star in the heavens is looking back down on me. It has left me feeling alone out here in the mountains. I've been lonely before but since Grisha left it has seemed desolate and that I've been forgotten. Even going down to the town below for Christmas service was a lonesome experience. I don't know my neighbors and I'm not sure I want to. No one extended warm wishes for the holidays even after having been wished a Merry Christmas. No my "neighbors" were not friendly.

I sit here wishing on stars like my mother had taught me. We didn't see as many back in Philadelphia as I see out here but there were enough. My wishes, however, were falling on deaf ears. I watched the stars as thin tendrils of clouds began drifting over the lights in the sky and knew that we'd have snow before morning.

I picked myself up and went inside to warm by the fire. I didn't realize how cold I'd become. I picked up my knitting and began a new section of a blanket that I'd begun after Marshall Deeks and his wife Kensi left. While I worried about Grisha, they left me with a hope that he'd be back. He'd promised me he would and Marty said Grisha always kept his word. I had to believe them, didn't I?

I knitted and soaked up the warmth for a while. In amidst those stitches I put in a few prayers for the health and safe return of Grisha. I knew that if he could he'd be back but the description of his wounds worried me. Did someone really take five bullets to the chest and survive? Deeks seemed to think he would, after all he had me to return to.

The next month were more days of taking care of my cattle and chickens, shoveling snow, keeping the cabin clean and warm, planning for spring gardens and knitting. The blanket was nearing completion. It would only be a few more days.

The next day the snow started lightly and didn't seem like it would amount to much but at mid-day it quickened its pace. The snow swirled around my knees as I swept the path to the privy and the barn. After a while I could just barely see the barn across the yard. The temperature dropped which I could feel inside the cabin as well as outside. A few more logs were put into the fireplace and into the wood stove to take the chill off.

I made dinner and ate my solitary meal in silence. What I wouldn't give to have companionable conversation with Grisha again. I shook that thought off and went to the barn to tuck in my animals for the night. Just being out there for that short period of time left me chilled to the bone. I went back to the cabin and put over the last of the coffee to warm. The pot hit the side of the stove and clanged but I swore I heard another sound. A horse whinnied outside my door. I knew that I didn't imagine it but who would be out on a night like this? I threw my coat on over my shawl and opened the door. There stood Devil with a figure hunched over the saddle horn. Grisha? I ran out and tried to help the poor frozen man down but he fell from the saddle almost into my lap and we both went down into the snow. We got up and moved slowly into the cabin. We slipped his frozen coat from his arms and I wrapped him in a quilt and placed him before the fire. I put some of the warmed coffee into a cup and pressed it into his hands.

Devil still stood by the porch and needed to be put into a stall in the barn. I watched Grisha drink the coffee, savoring the taste and the warmth as he swallowed. I then went to take care of Devil. Patsy recognized him and gave him a nicker as a welcome. His saddle and blanket were hung on the stall divide and the saddle bag and rifle I took into the house.

When I opened the door Grisha stood in front of the chest where my dead husband had kept his clothing. Grisha had worn Evan's clothing when he was here in the fall. I'd taken them out and he used them. When he left he didn't take the clothing. He left it and I washed it and put it back into the chest. What Grisha never saw were the items in the bottom of the chest. He stood holding a baby blanket that I'd made. The look on his face was betrayal, but when he saw my face it turned to grave concern for me. I sank down into the rocker by the fire and looked into the flames of my past. I'd never told him about my son. Not that I hadn't wanted to but there never seemed to be the right time. Now would be that time.

He came to me with questions. Oh no, not vocal ones, but he has always been able to use those eyes to get people to tell him things. Through my tears I told him how when Evan died I did so much to try to save him that something went wrong with the pregnancy. I lost both my husband and my son Jamie that day. They are both buried out back. He came to me and held me as I mourned the loss of my son for the first time. I'd spent so much time surviving that I'd never had time to mourn properly.

Later that evening, when I exhausted myself crying, he put me to bed and went back to the fireplace to wrap up in the quilt and sit there while I slept. I knew what it was like to sit all night in that rocker after all I'd done it when he first came and no one should have to do that. I invited him into the bed for a real night's sleep. He hit the pillow and was out. I lay there and watch him sleep for quite a while. I finally knew happiness.

BlackBear53


End file.
